Neighborhoods that have for years taken a back seat -- a dangerous back seat with no safety belts or cushions -- to the Downtown area will finally get the attention they need as billions of dollars in debt are cleared from the books, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said.

And it could start within days as he starts to clear cash by reaching settlements with some creditors.

They're promises of changes that Detroiters have desperately needed for a long time.

But city workers and retirees are angry and afraid. They fear for pension and health care benefits they expected and paid into for years.

Labor leaders said they were "surprised and disappointed" by the filing that came before they were finished negotiating. And some suspect Orr, a renowned bankruptcy lawyer brought in by the governor in March to take over city government, intended all along to pull the Chapter 9 trigger.

Credit rating agencies, meanwhile, won't be amused by the development.

Moody's Investors Service called it a "credit negative event given the additional uncertainty it creates for bondholders of various security types."

While Orr hopes to be in and out of the process by late summer of fall of next year, Moody's points out that just being deemed eligible for bankruptcy "is a process that can be measured in months or years."

The city will have to show cash flow insolvency and demonstrate that "good-faith negotiations" have taken place with creditors, something that the city's retirement systems dispute, but that Orr said he "bent over backwards" to ensure.